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I was under the impression that the email tracking pixel technique became less reliable once GMail started pre-loading email images on its own server and sendin
by didgeoridoo 9y ago
I was under the impression that the email tracking pixel technique became less reliable once GMail started pre-loading email images on its own server and sending you the cached copy instead. Does anyone know if these services found a way around that?
- peterwwillis 9y agoThere are lots of potential ways to track via an email besides images. I'm not sure which work in Gmail. But the more common marketer's strategy is just to provide a lead and a hyperlink - let the user click it and track them in their browser. Marketers can still embed images with unique URIs that identify an address and know when a user opens it. Even if Google caches it, they know that address opened it once (because Google doesn't preload images until the user opens the mail)
- proginthebox 9y agoAll tracking methods become ineffective once we switch back to plain text emails.
- Jagat 9y agoContrary to popular beliefs, gmail does not pre-fetch all the images. It fetches the images via a proxy the first time the user loads the email via gmail app or gmail web, and caches it for repeat opens. Also, there’s no proxying if the user uses a third party app (like the iPhone app). So open metrics are still fairly accurate since not many users open the same email multiple times. So why does gmail do this if it still allows the websites to track opens? Primarily to prevent IP address leak and to prevent the website owner from reading it's cookies on email opens (if opened on a browser), and/or cross-linking multiple emails for further tracking and linking identities.